Indiana Marion and the Raiders of Noah's Ark
''Indiana Marion and the Raiders of Noah's Ark ''is the first film in the Indiana Marion ''film series. Plot Prologue: South America, 1936 Set in 1936, a year before the events in ''Indiana Marion and the Temple of Traps, the story begins with Dr. Indiana Marion's journey into a Peruvian jungle with a few local guides to find the Golden Idol of Fertility within the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors. Marion avoids various traps, the betrayal of her two guides, Barranca and Satipo, and a giant rolling boulder that chases her out of the temple. Waiting for her outside is her nemesis, French archaeologist René Belloq, and a small army of Hovitos natives. Belloq steals the idol from Ravenwood, who barely escapes in a pontoon plane piloted by Jock Lindsey waiting nearby. United States Back at Marshall College where she teaches, two US Army intelligence men summon Marion into the auditorium along with Marcus Brody, head of the department and a good friend of Marion. The men explain that the US has intercepted a cryptic Nazi message that mentions a Professor Abner Ravenwood being under the scrutiny of German intelligence. Marion, the daughter of Ravenwood, helps interpret the message as an indication that the Nazis are close to finding Noah's Ark — the boat constructed under the guidance of God and Noah that housed the animals and family of Noah during the Great Flood. Legends imply that Adolf Hitler could use the Ark to render his rising army invincible. The Germans believe that Ravenwood has the headpiece to the Staff of Rak needed to pinpoint the Ark's resting place. The headpiece is a golden disk that, when affixed to the top of a shaft of specific height, focuses a beam of sunlight onto a model of Tanis, an ancient Egyptian city, thus revealing the Ark's location. According to Ravenwood, the Pharaoh Shishak stole the Ark from Jerusalem then buried it in the desert sands of his capital city, Tanis, in the Well of the Souls. Nepal Marion flies via a Pan Am Clipper to snowy, mountainous Nepal to speak with Sallah, Idiana Jones's tough-minded and independent friend, only to find that his friend's professor died and that he's reluctant to part with the headpiece. Ravenwood is chased away when a Nazi agent named Toht who had followed the archaeologist to Sallah tries to take the piece from him by force, threatening him with a hot iron. Marion, noticing the commotion, returns to the bar and engages in a fierce gunfight with Toht and his men. Sallah then teams up with Marion. The pair drive off the assailants, although in the process Toht inadvertently brands the markings of one side of the headpiece onto his palm when he tries to grab the artifact from the fire which broke out during the commotion. Cairo, Egypt Ravenwood and Sallah fly to Cairo and meet Sallah's wife Ayi-La, a skilled Egyptian digger and archaeologist, to find help in decoding the markings in the headpiece that specify the height of the staff needed to hold it. While touring about Cairo's markets, Marion and Sallah encounter hired swordsmen, which results in a huge street fight. Even though Marion battles and then fights off all of the attacking bazaar mercenaries (and killing the lead swordsman by just simply shooting him), Nazi operatives grab Sallah and throw him in a truck, but the vehicle crashes and explodes when Marion dispatches the driver with her pistol. Fearing that Sallah was killed in the blast, Marion retreats to a local tavern and encounters Belloq — hired by the Nazis to find the Ark — once more. Wishing to attack Belloq despite the Frenchman's sermon about the Ark's wonders, Ayi-La and his children rescue Marion from Belloq's bodyguards. That evening, Ayi-La takes Indy to an old Imam who decodes the markings. He notes that one side of the piece said says that the staff must be shortened out of respect for the Hebrew God. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece (since they only have a copy of one side's markings). Their staff is too long, and they are thus digging for the Ark in the wrong place. Indiana Marion finds Sallah alive at the Tanis site. He has been bound and gagged by his captors but Marion decides to leave him behind as his disappearance would jeopardize her finding the Ark. Infiltrating the dig, Marion and Ayi-La use the headpiece in the map room to then find the Ark deep within the snake-infested Well of Souls. Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic Colonel Dietrich and his assistant Gobler, surround the entrance, take the Ark, and leave Marion and Sallah to die in the snake-infested pit. They escape though a weak stone wall and arrive in time to see a Luftwaffe plane being prepared to ship the Ark to Berlin. After attempting to stop the pilot, Marion gets entangled in a fight with a muscular soldier around the spinning propellers of the plane. Sallah knocks out the pilot and fends off some infantrymen with the plane's coaxial machine gun while Marion (beat to the ground) hides her face when her opponent is torn apart by a propeller. Gas ignites the plane, and Belloq and Dietrich put the Ark on a truck instead. Stealing a horse and charging off at the truck convoy, Marion manages to take control of the truck, defeating the Nazi soldiers in the truck and on the other support vehicles, and escaping from Belloq and Dietrich. Reaching Cairo with the Ark, Marion and Sallah depart from a happy Ayi-La and sail with it on the Bantu Wind, a ship bound for England, under Captain Simon Katanga. A Nazi U-boat with Belloq and Dietrich on board stops the ship and takes back the Ark and Sallah, but Marion covertly follows the sub (having already stowed on board). It docks at a submarine pen on an island in the Aegean Sea, where Marion steals a soldier's uniform. Threatening to destroy the Ark with a rocket launcher, Marion is soon convinced by Belloq to surrender, giving in to her own deep desires as an archaeologist to see the Ark's contents. Marion and Sallah are tied up and forced to view a ceremony where Belloq opens the Ark in front of a group of German soldiers. Strange and mysterious spirits emerge, killing Belloq (whose head explodes), Dietrich (whose head implodes), Toht (whose face melts), the soldiers, and evaporating their souls into the afterlife. Marion and Sallah are spared because Ravenwood realizes that the spirits must not be viewed and shuts her eyes and instructs Sallah likewise. The two thus escape the wrath of God. Epilogue: Washington D.C. Later, the two Army intelligence representatives in Washington DC inform Marion that "top men" are studying the Ark, but in reality the Ark is sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant government warehouse filled with countless other similar crates. Category:Indiana Marion